How Do I Stand in Your Shoes?

by Susan Debell

Miranda Peabody had no patience for the other students in class and just didn’t understand why they couldn’t be as smart and talented as she was. Her teacher, Mrs. Klemp, suggested that she try to understand other people by "standing in their shoes." After much searching, she learns the true meaning of "standing in someone else’s shoes" and having empathy for others. This full-color, illustrated storybook for grades PK-4 includes discussion questions as well as activities to enhance learning about empathy. Activities

Labeling Some Tools of Understanding
Shoe Maze
Draw Yourself

Genres: Picture Books, Family

38 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Megan Cureton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must have in your classroom library! I read this book for a read aloud in a second grade classroom and my students loved every minute of it. They were all ears the whole time and you could tell they wanted to hear more after reading page after page. I would recommend reading this book in the beginning of the year, mainly because the children are just starting to meet each other and know each other. Miranda Peabody had zero patience with her classmates and thought she was so much smarter than them, and even made fun of them. Her teacher, Mrs. Klemp, finally suggested that Miranda should "stand in their shoes." At first, Miranda went through different trials of what Mrs. Klemp exactly meant by that, but once she talked with her neighbor, Mrs. Fishpond, she cleared things up. Miranda started to imagine herself in other people's shoes, and realized how frustrated people must be with her. She found the meaning of empathy and how to treat others by the end of the book. I really enjoyed the moral of the story and I feel like reading this book out loud gives the students a clear example of how to treat others and how to "put yourself in their shoes". This book would be perfect not only in the beginning of the year, but also if your classroom or school has words of the month that they focus on. For example, this school I was at had the word Empathy for a whole month, and throughout the month the students were supposed to be showing empathy towards each other, so this book does a perfect job of defining empathy and even provides a scenario that the students can relate to. I thought the illustrations were a little below my expectations, I thought they looked a little sloppy, but I can understand if the author wanted this, so the illustrations didn't take away from the story. I really enjoyed this book and will definitely have it in my classroom library in the future. For an activity, we traced our shoes in the middle we wrote about a time that we have shown someone empathy.

[Allie Patten · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read at the beginning of the year. We have all heard of standing in someone's shoes, but do kids understand what that means? I will have this story in my library to read to all students at the beginning of the year.

[Mary Dye · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was read to my class during Guidance time. This was an interesting book to read because it was all about empathy and how to be empathetic. It was cool to listen to empathy being brought down to an elementary level so that they could really understand what it is and how to be empathetic.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

conceited girl learns some empathy

not one of my favorites, but does have some redeeming characteristics

[Leah Gimre · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book to teach children about being in someone else's position.

[Anna]

Project Cornerstone Champion Year 3 Book 6